by Kate McFarland | Jun 2, 2016 | News
Research Eduardo Rodriguez-Montemayor writes about basic income in the blog of INSEAD, the Business School for the World.
After arguing that we should not fear the rise of automation, he defends basic income as a way to increase human productivity.
A citizen’s income (UBI) could become a centerpiece of social solidarity. It prevents absolute poverty while removing the stigma from state support. An immediate criticism of a UBI is that people will just not bother to work anymore, similar to criticisms leveled at unemployment insurance. But unemployment benefits are contingent on not working. A universal income is conferred on everyone, and would thus avoid that people have the interest to work less in order to meet the conditions for being eligible. Also, people would feel safer leaving employers, reskilling via lifelong learning, moving to another place or starting businesses. There is already evidence that such cash transfers increase one’s willingness to bear risk. This would encourage people to seek out the careers they desire, more in line with their skills and motivations, rather than the ones that put “food on the table”. The economy would thus become more productive by facilitating the efficient reallocation of talent.
Rodriguez-Montemayor is a Senior Research Fellow in INSEAD’s Economics Department. Additionally, he is a lead researcher of the Global Talent Competitiveness Index, and consults for the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), Inter-American Development Bank, and United Nations Environment Program.
Read the article here:
Eduardo Rodriguez-Montemayor, 11 May 2016, “How to Share the Benefits of Technology,” INSEAD Blog.
Note: There are a couple of apparent factual errors in this article. Rodriguez-Montemayor implicates, falsely, that the Finns preparing actually to enact a basic income (as opposed to running a pilot), and he states, prior to the popular vote on June 5th, that the Swiss have rejected the referendum on basic income.
This obligatory robot picture is from Phasmatisnox, via Wikimedia Commons.
by Kate McFarland | May 16, 2016 | News
Member of Parliament (MP) Yasmin Qureshi (Labour Party) is hosting a discussion of basic income in the British House of Commons on Monday, May 23rd.
Featured speakers include Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, and Barb Jacobson, coordinator of Basic Income UK and member of UBI Europe.
Last winter, Caroline introduced an Early Day Motion on basic income in the House of Commons, saying that the policy “has the potential to offer genuine social security to all while boosting entrepreneurialism.”
She adds, “Anyone who’s serious about building an economy which provides dignity for all – and frees up our time as well as our minds – should, at the very least, be backing serious research into the possibilities offered by a basic income.”
The meeting at the House of Commons is being held in collaboration with the New Europeans — a civil rights organization that champions freedom of movement, non-discrimination, and solidarity — as part of a series of events on basic income in Europe.
The event is open to the public, and more information can be found at the Facebook event page.
by Guest Contributor | May 4, 2016 | News
Article originally written in French by Basile Durand (MFRB), translated by Henri Geist (MFRB).
Answering the meteoric surge of interest provoked by the Finnish proposition to experiment with the basic income, the MFRB organized a conference on March third regarding UBI pilot programs and the Finnish Embassy in Paris. This conference was aimed at promoting understanding of the Finnish proposals and its motivations as well as opening the debate about the possibility of starting UBI experiments in France as well.
The conference was organized around four speakers and centered around the basic income and its experiments. The speakers included Olli Kangas, director of the research department of KELA (Finnish Institute of Social Welfare); Martine Alcorta, Aquitaine Limousin Poitou-Charentes regional councilor delegated to social and societal innovation, who aims to test a basic income in her region; Arnauld de l’Épine from Ars Industrialis, an international association for an industrial policy of the spirit technologies (founded by Bernard Stiegler) who said he is in favor of a contributory income; and Jean-Eric Hyafil, co-founder of the MFRB (French Movement for a Basic Income).
This article summarizes the discussions and includes some tweets exchanged during the conference with the hashtag #rdbfinlande.
Finnish experiments will start in 2017
Finland is currently in the process of establishing definitions and studying the feasibility of a basic income experiment. To cope with the complexity of social protection and the risk of poverty traps, a debate on the establishment of a universal income has taken shape in recent years. An intermediate report showing four types of experiments is due to be published in the coming days. Then Finland will choose one of the four experimentation options, which will be presented in the final report this November. The goal is to start the pilots at the beginning of 2017, which will run for a period of two years.
The first proposal offers a basic income distributed to everyone without conditions. The second proposal is a form of unconditional RSA, replacing the current social minima benefit. The third option is creating a basic income through a negative income tax. And the fourth option is left open for now. The questions of the amount of the basic income, the number of participants in the study and the unconditional nature of the benefit are also still under debate. On top of that, there are some additional concerns that must be sorted out, including fear of constitutional litigation or residency requirements. The introduction of the basic income requires a total overhaul of the welfare system, and this generates tension with some groups in society, particularly labor unions, which are major actors in the current system.
In France, a change of paradigm is necessary
Quoting Amartya Sen, who wished that everyone improved their own abilities without being constrained to find a job, Arnauld de l’Epine insisted on the importance of the freedom of choice, referring to the Declaration of Philadelphia or the Community Charter of Fundamental Social Rights of Workers which states that “Every individual shall be free to choose and engage in an occupation according to the regulations governing each occupation.” Building on the report of the French National Council of Digital, introduced in January, which proposed to experiment and study the project of basic income in France, Arnauld de l’Epine then supported the idea of establishing a guaranteed income to deal with automation and the rise of unemployment. The association Ars Industrialis is collaborating with Plaine Commune (agglomerations community of Seine-Saint-Denis) to test a supplemental income targeting young people.
Jean-Éric Hyafil recalled the cross-party nature of the MFRB. In its charter, the MFRB promotes an unconditional basic income without impairing the situation of the helpless or jeopardizing unemployment allowances, retirees or health insurance. Thus, one of the MFRB’s proposals would be to implement a national basic income gradually. The first step could be to implement an allowance like the RSA (French Solidarity Labor Income) for children, then by automation, individualization and finally the universalization of the RSA.
All speakers agreed on the need to experiment with a basic income prior to fully implementing such a policy, mirroring the process in Finland and Netherlands. In France, the experimentation project in Aquitaine is still in its embryonic state. But the agreement signed between EELV (French Ecologists) and the PS (French Socialists) during the last regional elections included the basic income experimentation project. Martine Alcorta stated she needed to study the subject in order to propose an experimentation model. The settings are thus not yet set. Quoting Amartya Sen. “Wealth is the ability to choose your life”, Martine Alcorta showed us her willingness to complete this experimental project.
France could therefore use the Finnish proposal to build its own experimentation, adapting it to the French context. By raising the subject, submitting ideas and reporting the various proposals, this conference gave us the opportunity to highlight the growing debate about the basic income. The MFRB stays at the disposal of all communities that desire to think about this important Twenty First Century idea.
Watch the video of the conference online (with English subtitles): https://youtu.be/mp5h9klZ0gI
by Andre Coelho | Apr 27, 2016 | News
Júlia Pinheiro and guests António Fernandes, António Dores and Florbela Oliveira. Credit to: SIC.
In this 30 minutes talk show, Júlia Pinheiro, a well-known TV host in Portugal, interviews António Fernandes, Basic Income activist at RBI Portugal, and António Dores, sociologist. Economist Florbela Oliveira takes on the skeptic’s role in the conversation, which entirely surrounds basic income, including its definition and implications. After António Fernandes presents basic income as a concept, Florbela questions its financial applicability (who pays for it), and António Dores clarifies that, according to a viability study already developed for the Portuguese situation, it is the beneficiaries themselves who pay for it, through a simple solidarity wealth redistribution scheme.
More information at:
Queridas Manhãs (show by Júlia Pineiro), “Rendimento Básico Incondicional”, SIC, 3rd March 2016
by Stanislas Jourdan | Apr 4, 2016 | News
In a recent interview with ‘The Economist’, Yanis Varoufakis says basic income is an ‘absolutely essential’ approach for the future of social democracy.
This is a major endorsement from a rising star of the European left. Varoufakis is a Greek economist who served as Finance Minister of Greece under the first Syriza government installed in January 2015. He recently launched ‘Democracy in Europe Movement 2025’ (DiEM25), with the aim of transforming the European Union from an elitist technocracy into a transparent and democratic institution that serves people’s interests.
In the interview, Varoufakis links the case for a basic income to the future of social democracy:
Today we are facing a serious danger of large masses of people who have low economic value. This is a powder keg in the foundations of society. Making sure that the great wealth-creation which capital is capable of does not light this dynamite — the basic income approach— is absolutely essential, but it is not part of the social democratic tradition. Think about it. The post-war consensus was all about national insurance, it was not about basic income. Now, either we are going to have a basic income that regulates this new society of ours, or we are going to have very substantial social conflicts that get far worse with xenophobia and refugees and migration and so forth.
Further on, he adds:
So what do we need to do to capture hope? That is the issue. In the 50s and 60s the dream of shared prosperity was that which gave hope. (…) So I think the basic income approach is capable of doing this as long as (…) you can explain to them where the money will come from, that it will not be simply debt, that we are going to generate a lot more income and a chunk of it is going to fund this. But we, the Left, must not be fearful.
Surfers should be fed
Varoufakis also mentions the famous controversy initiated by Philippe van Parijs and John Rawls about whether ‘surfers should be fed’. Varoufakis stands with van Parijs:
I gave a talk some time ago in the United States and said: yes, surfers in California must be fed by the rest of us. We may not like that, we may feel they are bums, but they deserve a basic income too.
OK, they don’t “deserve”, but they should have a basic income, because this is the way to stabilise society. But you need politicians that are capable of going out there and saying: You see that lazy bum over there that you hate? We should feed him. And we should make sure he has a house. Because if he does not have a house and he gets sick and so on, he is a greater burden for all of us.
It is the first time Varoufakis has explicitly endorsed basic income, but he has made allusions to it in in the past.
Back in 2010, he co-authored with Stuart Holland a report called ‘The Modest Proposal’ in which he elaborated four proposals to fix the structural crisis of the European monetary union. Under his 4th proposal, the Emergency Social Solidarity Programme (ESSP), Varoufakis developed the idea of implementing an EU-wide food stamp-style scheme as an emergency measure to reduce poverty, to unify Europe and to redistribute across all European states the trade surplus accumulated by countries like Germany. Such a scheme could even be financed by the European Central Bank:
CC picture: EU Council Eurozone
